Dangerous dinosaurs?

Were the dinosaurs ever really as ferocious as they are shown in books and films?

There is another mystery about dinosaurs to be explored. Today, many books and films show dinosaurs as terrible, ferocious beasts. But since there are only fossils to study today, it is very difficult to know for sure how dinosaurs behaved.

Most dinosaurs had small brains in comparison to the size of their bodies. The 29-foot long Stegosaurus had a brain the size of a walnut. Even the great Apatosaurus’s brain was not much larger than a kitten’s. If a huge Brachiosaurus (BRACK-ee-o-SOR-us) could be shrunk to the size of a human, its brain would be 10,000 times smaller than Man’s. This does not necessarily mean these animals were stupid as animals go, but they were surely no match for Man’s brain.

Brain cast from Tyrannosaurus rex. Notice that the brain size of a 10-year old boy is much larger!

Many dinosaurs were quite small. The Saltopus (SALT-oh-puss) was really tiny—no bigger than a housecat. Most of the dinosaurs killed by the Flood were less than fifteen inches long, not including their tails which made them more than twice as long. In museums, most people never see the small dinosaurs because the jumbo-sized ones are so much more impressive.

And of course, all young dinosaurs were small. If they were born from eggs, they were very little. No one knows for sure if all dinosaurs laid eggs, but they may have. The eggs that have been found are never very big. The larger they are, the stronger and thicker the shell has to be. This made it harder for the baby dinosaur to get out. Eggs from medium-size dinosaurs are never much bigger than a turkey’s egg. No one has found an egg from a great Brachiosaurus or Apatosaurus, but eggs were discovered from the 39-foot-long Hypselosaurus (HIP-se-loh-SOR-us). This dinosaur’s shape was somewhat like the Apatosaurus. Its biggest egg was only 12 inches long.

It probably took big dinosaurs a very long time to reach great size. Perhaps like the people before the Flood, dinosaurs also had long lives. One man, Methuselah, lived 969 years in those days of better health and environment. Adam and Eve were originally created with perfect hearts and eyes, perfect hearing and health--perfect bodies in every way. And so were the animals.

Dinosaurs were not the only animals that grew very large. The fossils show there once were giant kangaroos, giant deer, giant birds, giant dragonflies, giant bears and bison. There were even giant beavers (eight feet long)! Even many plants grew much larger in ancient times. Perhaps the people were bigger, too. No one knows for sure, but it seems possible.